Day 8

Here is the only picture we took after putting the roof on today. Learned a ton.

1. Forget the instructions. Do 4' at a time MAX. It is much easier.

2. Make sure the rubber membrane is straight or nearly so.

3. Don't do this on a windy day.

4. USE LOTS OF GLUE. We had to pull up the first section and lay another layer of glue. From then on we did 4' sections and rolled on glue in two layers for each section. This worked very well.

5. Don't step onto the roof while it is drying. Use luan on or something else to distribute your weight. (This was in the instructions.)

Day 7

We used Styrofoam glue to glue the new pieces of Styrofoam to the ceiling, and the new piece of luan into place. We used liquid nails to glue the luan to the wood frame and the vent opening and the metal framing.

Then we put lots of weight on the plywood to hold it down and make sure the luan fully adhered.

We used Kool Seal patch to fill the holes that were put in the ceiling in the original construction. All in all the roof looks pretty good. I keep picking small bits of roof, and rubber, and Styrofoam off the roof.

Day 6

It never rains in California, except when I have a major project or my parents come into town. This day we focused on the section of roof laminate has come loose and popped up. We decided to cut our a section of the plywood and take out whatever Styrofoam needs to be removed.


This picture shows an up close picture of the ceiling around the vent pipe. I'm not sure you can see, but apparently when they installed the cabinet in the bathroom they pushed up on the ceiling putting stain on the luan roof. It finally popped and left a sharp edge pointing up into rubber membrane.


The side rails on the edge of the roof took the hardest hit from water damage. The front passenger and rear driver sections took the hardest hit. We replaced about 8' in each side.

Day 5 - Part 1

I took some time this morning and investigated more the area that I have little idea how to fix. This shows a larger picture of the area where the 1/8" (NOT 1/4" luan) has popped up.


I peeled a little bit more of the luan up to realize that there is no support along the outside edge of the rv. It rests on the metal joists with no support front to back. Unless you count the 1/8" edge of the metal frame, which provides a little support but no place to glue them together.


In this view I'm holding the luan up. The foam insulation seems to be puffed. Maybe from water damage but it is too big to allow the plywood to rest evenly down.


Here the picture shows the luan lifted up by the insulation and way out of alignment with the siderail and neighboring luan.

Day Four - Part 2

The biggest damage is to the Front Right corner of the roof. You can see in top rail of the side wall a big hole where the 2x2 has disintegrated.


Here is what I was able to take off with just my hands and a flat head screwdriver. The 2x2 sits in a "L" shaped metal beam. I will probably take both rails out on the two sides of the rv. The picture below shows damage in the Left rail as well.

Here is the second worst area of damage. This is at the rear left corner of the roof, opposite of the pictures above. Here the plywood shows damage. I'm not sure if I can take the plywood up or not. Especially without impairing the structural integrity of the roof.

Here is another shot of an early picture showing the sheet of plywood that has popped up 1/4" If I step on it, it lowers down, but It takes all of my weight to make it do that, and of course, when I move off, it returns to this position. I guess the most amazing part is that no where along either side rail is there any mesh tape, to help the roof cross this gap. Even other places in the natural variations of the wood there is an 1/8" difference. It seems to me that these joints should all have mess over them. Seems pretty sloppy on the part of Fleetwood.

Day Four - Part 1

I couldn't believe that my wife was even willing to get on the roof yesterday. Day four is here, and she volunteered to go back up and help some more. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate her help.

Here is a shot of the laminate of on the nose, and the rubber roof pulled out from under it. The rubber roof was laid about 5" under the laminate. NO glue no staples, just laying there. I wasn't sure a day ago, how this all worked. Now it seems pretty simple to recreate with the new rubber.


While I was finishing up, Jojo and mommy came up the ladder to visit.


Here is a shot of the completed and cleaned roof. It took nearly 12 hours of work to get all of the rubber up. Interestingly there are large sections where the glue was nothing but a fine powder. No wonder the rubber cracked and peeled. In my next post I'll show the damage I found.